From 26d36e1faac40fb0570965a33b67f7651ce8eeaa Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Li Xuanji Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2018 16:38:16 -0400 Subject: separate out a new "Design Criteria" section from "Formal Specification" --- docs/abi-spec.rst | 13 +++++++------ 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-) (limited to 'docs') diff --git a/docs/abi-spec.rst b/docs/abi-spec.rst index 4e7c88d0..7b78fad3 100644 --- a/docs/abi-spec.rst +++ b/docs/abi-spec.rst @@ -102,18 +102,19 @@ them. |:ref:`struct` |``tuple`` | +-------------------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ -Formal Specification of the Encoding -==================================== +Design Criteria for the Encoding +================================ -We will now formally specify the encoding, such that it will have the following -properties, which are especially useful if some arguments are nested arrays: - -Properties: +The encoding is designed to have the following properties, which are especially useful if some arguments are nested arrays: 1. The number of reads necessary to access a value is at most the depth of the value inside the argument array structure, i.e. four reads are needed to retrieve ``a_i[k][l][r]``. In a previous version of the ABI, the number of reads scaled linearly with the total number of dynamic parameters in the worst case. 2. The data of a variable or array element is not interleaved with other data and it is relocatable, i.e. it only uses relative "addresses" + +Formal Specification of the Encoding +==================================== + We distinguish static and dynamic types. Static types are encoded in-place and dynamic types are encoded at a separately allocated location after the current block. **Definition:** The following types are called "dynamic": -- cgit